The Magic of Soup
by spikesvamp79
Summary: Sherlock is sick! Molly tries to help! This is my first FF and all edits are my own. Constructive criticism welcome! Given the reviews, I am hard at work on another chapter, this may come out to be 3 or 4, still up in the air. Thanks!


John Watson was absolute rubbish at observing what went on around him, especially with his flatmate Sherlock Holmes. For instance, he knew that Sherlock didn't eat when on a case, but he didn't take into account that if Sherlock ate only when he actually remembered to that the man would have died years ago. He didn't understand how the man had survived before they had moved in together and Sherlock had taken on his own eating habits.

John Watson didn't see the granola bars that magically appeared in Sherlock's coat pockets after leaving St. Bart's. He didn't see the sandwiches slipped into the man's hand as they would leave the laboratory. He hadn't noticed the plethora of empty containers that composed all of Holmes' kitchenware. He was much more concerned about the frozen tongues in the freezer than the containers of frozen soup, all with labels and dates.

It had taken five minutes after meeting Sherlock Holmes for Molly Hooper to fall irrevocably in love with him. His swift deductions and overall brilliance both stunned her and fascinated her. After seeing the man come into her lab looking like death after a case where he had gone without eating for over a week, she felt the desperate need to feed him. She blamed her mother for this. Throughout her father's illness, her mother had become obsessed with cooking various dishes that had various health properties and that her father enjoyed. It had been her way of trying to deal with the overall suckiness of life. After his death, she only continued these cooking experiments with most turning out rather well.

Molly herself had benefited from these and had started to do this for herself and for others. She loved her job, but to say that everyday was a barrel of laughs would be false. There were many days when she had to work with the bodies of those that had no right being dead. After a particularly terrible day in which a drunkard had crashed into a car with two pregnant women, killing both of them, Molly knew she needed something to be her escape, cooking filled that role.

The first time that she tried to give Sherlock one of her soups, he completely ignored her. The next time, he informed her that he did not eat when working on a case and that he did not need her to "feed him up." The third time she went for a more subtle approach and slipped a granola bar in his coat pocket. Even though he had noticed it, he had not returned it nor commented to her about it.

She then stocked up on granola bars and began to slip them into his coat whenever he was in the lab. He seemed to loose some of the deathly paleness that she had first seen in him, but he still was not up to where Molly thought he should be. Deciding to try once more with actual food, she heated up a bowl of a soup and left it next to him as he sat at his microscope. She left him and went to her office to work on paper work. When she checked in on him later, he had left, but so had the soup. She smiled to herself and knew that she had made her first break through.

After that, Molly kept containers of soup in her fridge at work. Whenever he would come in, she would wordlessly hand him a freezer bag with the latest dish in it. He soon began to fill out his suits and look less anorexic. He never mentioned it and she never asked. Their strange relationship continued and Molly's love for the man only grew stronger.

After John had moved into 221B with him, he had continued to take the bags she would make for him. The food seemed to double, but John never actually saw any of it. Sherlock made sure that John never saw him eat or saw the food that Molly sent with him. It was strange that he felt the need to hide that he ate from his flat mate, but he saw it as something personal between himself and Molly. Plus, Sherlock didn't like to share, especially when it was Molly's soup.

The last time Molly had seen Sherlock had been at Christmas. She hadn't made him anymore food and he hadn't been in her lab since identifying Irene Adler by her body. Molly herself had stopped making her soups and had focused on moping and devouring all sorts of take aways. She found it easier for her to sink into her melancholy than to make an attempt to move on. Sherlock's words had torn her apart at Christmas, and the silence that followed had only driven her further into her melancholic state. Then on a particularly blustery Friday afternoon, she received a text.

_John is away. I'm sick. Make the spicy one. SH_

Molly was shocked. Never before had he asked for a certain soup, but she knew exactly which one he was talking about. It was an escole or Italian comfort soup. Instead of being angry at Sherlock (she had long ago forgiven his hurtful words), she was excited at the thought of being able to see him and to make amends. After a moment of deliberation, she decided to be flirty. It was a big risk, but she was willing to take it. She told herself that if he put her down after this that she would stop.

_What's the magic word? MH_

_I already apologized for my conduct over the holidays. SH_

Molly was surprised that he had remembered it.

_No, not that one. You should know that I forgave you for that long ago. MH_

Hint, it beings with a "p." MH

Please? SH

On my way. MH

Two bachelors living together was bound to turn any flat into a mess. When one of said bachelors is a consulting detective, the flat may be approaching absolute disaster status. Molly took a deep breath as she opened the door to 221B after Mrs. Hudson had let her into the building. Before she could knock, a nasally voice called out from within and bid her enter. She eased into the flat and was met with quite a sight.

Books were strewn all over the place, most left open or tossed haphazardly into different piles. There looked to be several socks on a lamp. As she made her way into the kitchen, she was greeted with the sight of several experiments in various stages of decay. What looked like part of a scalp was sitting on a cutting board. And in the midst of all this madness lay the very man. He was curled up on the couch in his dressing gown, facing into the cushion.

Molly set down the escole on the one part of the counter that was not covered in abandoned science projects. She began opening up cupboards, looking for bowls. In her search she found a cabinet full of what looked to be various chemicals. "Sherlock, is this cyanide?" she asked. She heard the creak of the leather as he turned over.

"Yes, what of it?"

She looked at him in shock and then remembered who she was speaking to. "Right. Okay," she mumbled to herself.

"We're out of bowls. Use mugs. They're two to your left. Molly. Spoons are in the drawer on the right." Molly couldn't help but smile to herself at the stuffed up tone his voice had taken on. As miserable as he sounded, his voice sounded almost childlike. She found the mugs and the spoons and after washing them out (she didn't know what they were last used for) brought over two steaming mugs of soup to the couch.

He took his from her eagerly and began to spoon it into his mouth. Molly took a seat on the floor near the couch. He began to make scandalous noises as he gulped down the spicy comfort soup. Soon his nose began to run with the loosed endorphins. Pulling tissues from the recesses of his robe, he blew his nose. Molly couldn't help but giggle at the fog-horn like noise that he made. Actually acknowledging her, Sherlock looked down from his scrunched position on the couch. "What?" he asked her, genuinely perplexed.

"Its just that you sound rather hilarious when blowing your nose. Its not your fault, its just funny," she smiled up at him. His confused face turned into one that might have been embarrassed if she wasn't speaking to the great and might Sherlock Holmes.

"I do not sound funny. Why do I sound funny?" he asked, looking at her with a confused glance once again.

"Because you're sick silly. Come on, you've finished the soup and you should probably go to bed. I'll clean up," she told him, grabbing their dishes and making her way to the kitchen. Sherlock grumbled and he went not to his bedroom but the bathroom. He slammed the door shut. Molly could hear the water running and began to try to restore some sort of order to at least the kitchen. She made a mental note to bring hazardous waste bags over within the next few days, since most of this shouldn't be put with the regular garbage.

As she made progress through the flat, she heard Sherlock calling her from the bathroom. Concerned that he had fallen and couldn't get up, she ran to the door and threw it open. "What, what is it," she asked the man reclining in the tub with his eyes shut.

"I need you to wash my hair," he informed her. Her stomach instantly filled with butterflies at his request, but she made herself stop short.

"Can't you do it yourself," she queried, not knowing if she could handle dealing with a naked Sherlock so close to her.

He sighed. "Yes, but you'll do it more thoroughly and I can't be bothered to do it. Stop simpering about and just do it already."

Molly took a deep breath, smelling the eucalyptus that he had put in the bath. She made her way over and knelt beside the tub. There was a bottle sitting on the ledge and she put a decent amount of shampoo in her hand and began to massage his damp scalp. It was everything she had hoped it would be. Not only were his locks soft, but he responded to her touch like a cat. As she made her way down to the base of his neck, he let out a moan as she dug her fingers deep into his skull, massaging it as she went. Neither spoke as she washed his hair, but there was a definite tension in the air that both could feel.

Sherlock's hair was bordering on being overly clean by the time that she was done. His eyes still closed, he moved further into the tub, allowing his knees to come out of the water as he bent his head back to rinse out the soap. Molly leaned over his prone form to ensure that it was completely rinsed out when he finally opened his eyes. Their gaze met as he looked into her face and smiled. Not the flirty smile that had gotten him a bag of toes; not the pitying smile from Christmas. It was a genuine look of pleasure that went across his face as he looked up at her. "Thank you Molly," he quietly spoke. A frown broke through his smile as he continued looking at the woman leaning over him. "I am truly sorry for my comments at Christmas and from before that. I was, and please listen because I rarely say this, _wrong._ I was so very wrong about you Molly."

Her heart began pounding as she listened to everything that he said. His eyes never left hers as he made this declaration to her. Taking a deep breathe, she spoke, smiling down at him, "It's alright Sherlock. You know I'll always forgive you." With a burst of courage, she leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. His eyes shut as she her lips pressed gently against him. The moment seemed to stretch on between them, but the spell finally broke as Molly pulled away. "Do you need anything else?" she asked him, smiling tenderly.

"No, I'll be fine," he replied, coming out of the moment as well. Molly turned and walked out of the bathroom and closed the door. Her heart had not yet stopped pounding as she resumed her cleaning of his flat. She couldn't keep a smile off her face as she rejoiced in the moment that they had just shared. Having attained what seemed to be a true apology and actual recognition from Sherlock, she couldn't help but allow her mind to hope that something more might be possible between the two of them. Until last Christmas, Molly had allowed herself to entertain this same hope. After Sherlock's berating of her, she had tried to convince herself that she needed to get over him and move on with her life, but no matter what she did she couldn't get him out of her system. It wasn't just his appearance that had drawn her in and made him so attractive to her, but his passion and inquisitiveness towards all things. He wasn't satisfied with knowing what would happen at the end of an experiment; he wanted to know the why as well. This was a sentiment that she had felt herself and was one of her main motivators for her career path.

As these thoughts ran through her head, she finished going through the apartment and had gotten it at least somewhat cleaned up. She washed her hands and went to Sherlock's room to check in on him. Knocking softly she said, "Sherlock, are you all right?" Not able to hear his response, she opened the door and peeked in. "What did you say," she asked, seeing the man wrapped up in his sheets and the light off.

"Come here," he mumbled. She eased into the room and closed the door behind her. She made her way over to the bed and sat on the edge which Sherlock had curled up to on his side.

"What do you need," she asked quietly, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Rub my head," his voice emanated from admist his blankets. Where she had been gently rubbing her hand, she froze.

"Um, okay,"she replied and moved up the bed a little bit and tried to lean over to touch his head.

"Really Molly, there is no way that your short arms would ever be able to reach that way. Lay on the other side of the bed and then you'll be able to reach," he commanded. Molly eased off the bed and walked around to the other side. She sat down and toed off her flats. Deciding to go for comfort, she took off her cardigan as well and laid it on top of her shoes. Laying on top of the covers, she spooned up behind Sherlock, but not so close as to actually allow her body to touch his. She knew that the man had extreme issues with touching and being touch and didn't want to push him. She gently began to rub his head like she had in the bath. Sherlock let loose a moan of appreciation and turned over on to his back.

Instead of maintaining the physical distance that she had created, Sherlock scooted closer to her and ended up placing his head on her chest, gently pressing his nose into her breast. It took all of her restraint not to let out an answering moan as she continued to stroke his head. She could feel his breath as he settled in. He quickly fell asleep as she continued her ministrations. Eventually she too succumbed to her exhaustion and joined him in slumber.

The first thing that Molly realized, as she awoke, was that she was comfortable warm. She was used to waking up to the other side of the bed being freezing cold while only her side was warm. The next thing that she realized was that she was not in her own bed. This one was much longer and seemed to contain a consulting detective if she was to go on the smell that seemed to surround her. She opened her eyes slowly and was greeted with the sight of Sherlock's collar bone. During the night she had somehow slipped down to sleep with her head on his chest. he had responded by wrapping himself around her. She smiled against his chest as she reveled in the comfort and secure feeling that laying in his arms held. Believing him to still be asleep, Molly let loose a sigh.

"Molly," his voice rumbled in his chest as he spoke.

"Yeah?" she asked, disappointed that her moment was over.

"I may need some more soup."


End file.
